APJeremy Hermida came up big again on Tuesday, driving in the two runs the Red Sox needed to win in the ninth.

Everyone else may have already given up and thrown in the towel on the Red Sox season, but they aren’t ready to do that.

After a steady wave of negative reports and rumors of clubhouse rifts came flowing out of the Red Sox clubhouse all morning, the team found a way to band together and pull out a strong 7-6 victory after succumbing to the Yankees one night prior under similar circumstances.

Almost everything about Tuesday’s game was reminiscent to Monday’s ninth inning meltdown.

They again fell into an early five run deficit and used a late inning rally to take a lead into the bottom of the ninth inning. Jonathan Papelbon again took the mound to close it out and quickly fell into trouble.

Alex Rodriguez hit a ball right at Marco Scutaro that passed under his glove, stole second and then scored on a double by Robinson Cano. The Red Sox were well on their way to another meltdown and disheartening defeat.

Except this time, things broke the Red Sox way. Papelbon worked his way out of danger, got the three outs he needed and they escaped with the victory.

Everything about it was dirty and ugly, but now they know that they can hang with the elite teams even when they don’t play their best game.

It was exactly the kind of win you can rally behind and use to turn a season around.

The Red Sox did, however, dodge a major bullet on the defensive side of the ball.

It’s starting to become an everyday occurrence for this team to make a couple mental errors that lead to runs.

Tuesday it was Scutaro’s turn to play the goat.

Along with his ninth inning gaffe, In the second inning, he failed to field a ground ball that would have went for a sure double play, but instead he recorded neither out and both runners eventually came around to score.

This isn’t going to work every night.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news.

Just when it looked like all the troops were finally going to be assembled, it appears another one has fallen.

Josh Beckett apparently tweaked his back at some point and was pulled with two outs in the fourth inning after having allowed three earned runs, while walking three and striking out six.

There’s no official word on the situation, but if it is the same injury that he has been suffering from, Beckett clearly isn’t ready to be on a mound. A stint on the disabled could be forthcoming. At the very least, he will likely miss his next start.

The injury came on a night when Beckett pitched pretty well. His change-up, fastball and cutter were all effective, but what was troubling was that he didn’t throw his curveball often.

He used it just seven times, two of which went for strikes. In his last start, also against the Yankees, Beckett was reluctant to throw his curveball as well.

But none of that is likely to matter in the near future. Any progress that Beckett has made could now be stunted.

The saving grace here is that Tim Wakefield is behind glass for emergencies such as these, but he isn’t an adequate replacement for a healthy and effective Beckett.